Songoftheday 4/15/22 - Y'all act like you never seen a white person before, jaws all on the floor like Pam like Tommy just burst in the door...

 

 

"The Real Slim Shady" - Eminem

from the album The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 13

 

Today's song comes from rapper Marshall Mathers, who records under the moniker Eminem, who broke through in the hip-hop world in a huge way with his debut album The Slim Shady LP, which sold millions and even spun off a top-40 pop crossover hit with "My Name Is" in the spring of 1999. A year later, he collaborated with former N.W.A. rapper/producer Andre "Dr. Dre" Young, who produced Slim Shady for the Grammy-winning top-40 hit "Forgot About Dre". 

Later that year, Eminem returned with his sophomore (-ic) effort The Marshall Mathers LP, riffing on the debut title to include his birth name. The lead single from the record was "The Real Slim Shady", which was meant to bring out even more of the persona introduced on his first album. Written by Mathers and Young with songwriters Mike Elizondo and Terry Coster, the record goes against hip-hop norms and uses original production instead of a sample base, the backdrop gave the single a distinct sound lead by keyboards played with piano-like staccato notes, as Eminem pulled no punches, name-checking celebrities and other musicians. Even Dr. Dre and himself as a white guy rapping get dropped on here, as he fully embraces the snotty brat personality his whiny delivery hints to. At that point nobody knew what to think of this new guy at this point, but damn did me make a presence, with a record much more musically satisfying than "My Name Is" was. The music video certainly illustrates the rapid-fire lyrics with ease, including celebrity lookalikes and Kathy Griffin as a psych ward nurse. Yeah there's a weird turn with the "ugh" in the clip after the line "But if we can hump dead animals and antelopes, then there's no reason that a man and another man can't elope" but honestly it's like it ain't for him but out of all the homophobic shit in rap music in the previous decade that line is relatively radical...

"The Real Slim Shady" ended up breaking Eminem big, reaching the pop Hot 100 top ten in America in June of 2000. The song just missed the top ten on Billboard magazine's R&B chart at #11, while topping their dance-oriented Rhythmic radio chart. It even crossed over to the Alternative Rock radio list, which was still experimenting with hip-hop (and his Caucasian self surely helped), where it climbed to #19. Internationally, the single went to #1 in the UK, Ireland, and Iceland, while reaching the top ten in Belgium (#2W/#7F), Norway (#2), Switzerland (#2), Portugal (#2), Sweden (#3), Denmark (#3), Italy (#4),the Netherlands (#5), Canada (#6), France (#6), Spain (#6), Finland (#6), Austria (#6), Germany (#7), and Romania (#8), and just missing the mark in Australia at #11. The Marshall Mathers LP, released in May of that year, spent two months (eight weeks) atop the Billboard 200 sales tally, and 4 weeks at #1 on the R&B albums list, going on to sell over eleven million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2001, "The Real Slim Shady" won the trophy for Best Solo Rap Performance, while The Marshall Mathers LP won for Best Rap Album. Even more notably, the set was up for Album Of The Year, losing to Steely Dan's Two Against Nature. 

Despite the big success of the single, Eminem found it difficult to follow that up, especially since the rest of the album is much more graphically violent, misogynistic, and dark. Album track "Bitch Please II", featuring rappers Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Xzibit and Nate Dogg, got enough urban radio airplay (in the censored version) to spend 20 weeks on Billboard's R&B chart with a high of #61.The second true single from the record, "The Way I Am", wasn't as goofy funny as the last single, and while it rose to #26 on the R&B chart, it stalled down at #58 on the pop Hot 100. That was followed by probably one of his most talked about records, "Stan", which addresses fans that go over the line with obsession that not only gave British singer Dido a career but coined a term for the rabid fans for evermore. Nevertheless it stalled at the halfway mark on the Hot 100 at #51, while popping into the R&B top-40 at #36. Eminem performed the song at the Grammy Awards with Elton John in a grand "come together with the gheys" show that actually fell flat with me (at the time Elton was whoring himself out to the likes of Rush Limbaugh so whatevs). Nevertheless, "Stan" probably remains his best moment for me of his career. Album track "Drug Ballad", cleaned up to just "Ballad", was a minor R&B radio hit at #71. Nevertheless, Eminem will return to the series.

(8/10)

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Here's Eminem recreating the clone army part of the video for this and "The Way I Am" for the MTV Music Video Awards in 2000...

Next up, on the Up In Smoke Tour in 2000...

and lastly in concert in Japan in 2001...

Up tomorrow: This Dutch Eurodance group seems solo, but like it that way.